Dongting Lake

300px|thumb|Map showing Lake Dongting and the major rivers flowing into it

Dongting Lake () is a large, shallow lake in northeastern Hunan Province, China. It is a flood basin of the Yangtze River, so its volume depends on the season. The provinces of Hubei and Hunan are named after their location relative to the lake: Hubei means "North of the Lake" and Hunan, "South of the Lake".

Dongting Lake is famous in Chinese culture as the place of origin of dragon boat racing and is home to the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise.

Geography

left|thumb|Map including Dongting Lake (labeled as TUNG-T'ING HU ) (1953)

300px|thumb|Map of Dongting Plain

In the July–September period, flood water from the Yangtze flows into the lake, enlarging it greatly. The lake's area, which normally is (data before 1998), may increase to in flood season, when vast amounts of water and sediment from the Chang Jiang flow into the lake.  The lake is also fed by four major rivers: the Xiang, Zi, Yuan and Li rivers. Small rivers also flow in, the most famous being the Miluo River, where the loyal official and poet Qu Yuan committed suicide in the early 3rd century BC, according to tradition. In addition, the Xiao River flows into the Xiang near Yongzhou, before the Xiang flows into the lake. Ocean-going vessels can travel through the Xiang to reach Changsha.

River and lake

The Dongting Lake catchment area is . The lake's only outlet is a natural channel 14 km long and on average 1 km wide.

There are five main rivers in the catchment (excluding the area whose water flows directly into the Yangtze River, the same hereafter):

Xiang, from the south;
Zi, from the southwest;
Yuan, from the west;
Lishui, from the north;
Miluo, from the east.

All of these rivers flow directly into the lake. In addition, some of water of the Yangtze River also flows into the lake through the Sankou distributary channels.

The catchment has highly complex flow regimes featuring strong river-lake interactions. Dongting Lake receives water from the upper Jingjiang reach of the Yangtze River. The water in Dongting Lake finally flows into the lower Jingjiang reach of the Yangtze River at the Chenglingji Station and discharges downstream. The water in Dongting Lake mainly comes from surface runoff and direct rainfall on the lake surface. The Dongting Lake catchment begins to enter the rainy season in April and the rainfall reaches its maximum in June. Then, the rainy area moves to the upper part of the Yangtze River Basin in July and flood water flowing into the lake from upstream increases significantly. The rainy season may continue until the end of September. The flow regime of Dongting Lake maintains the same temporal pattern as the rainfall regime.

The flood season is from April to September. In general, flood water comes mainly from the catchment from April to June and from water diversion of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River from July to September.

The annual runoff from Dongting Lake to the Yangtze River is , of which to is received from the Yangtze River through the inlets. Influenced by the monsoon, the lake shows a significant seasonal change in its flow regime. The lake water level fluctuates dramatically throughout a year, up to . The water surface area also varies with the fluctuation of the water level from thousands of square kilometers in the flood season to only a few hundred square kilometers in the dry season.

History

The earliest rice paddies yet discovered in the world were in the Liyang plain, which was then on the western edge of Dongting lake. The state of Chu occupied the region in the Eastern Zhou period, and its territory there was taken over by Qin in the 3rd century BCE. During the Han dynasty, Yunmeng Marsh ( literally "Great Marsh of Cloud Dream"), which lies to the north of Dongting Lake in Hubei Province, served as the main flood basin of the Yangtze. The rich sediment of the marsh attracted farmers. As embankments were built along the north bank of the Yangtze River, floodwaters that would previously have accumulated there were diverted southwards into Dongting Lake. This means that the large size of Dongting Lake was increasingly the result of human activity

At that time, Dongting Lake was China's largest freshwater lake. Because of its size, it gained the name Eight-hundred-li-Dongting (). Nowadays, it is the second-largest, after Poyang Lake, as much of the lake has been turned into farmland.

Culture and mythology

thumb|right|200px|Hermit Fisherman on Lake Dongting, by [[Wu Zhen (painter)|Wu Zhen (1287–1354)]]

The area is well known in Chinese history and literature. "Dongting" literally means "Grotto Court", and the lake was named for the huge hall or cavern, which was believed to exist beneath the lake, where the spirits of the Sage-King Shun's wives Ehuang and Nüying were said to be the rulers of this grotto, which was claimed to have underground passages opening to all parts of the empire. Dragon boat racing is said to have begun on the eastern shores of Dongting Lake as a search for the body of Qu Yuan, the Chu poet (340–278 BC), and a dragon-king is said to live at the bottom of the lake.

The scenery of the Jiuyi Mountains and of the Xiao and Xiang rivers below is often mentioned in Chinese poetry. The late Tang dynasty poet Yu Wuling is supposed to have been fond of the scenery of Dongting Lake. During the Song dynasty, it became the fashion to paint this region's scenery in a set of eight scenes, usually entitled Eight Views of Xiaoxiang. It is also said that Han Shizhong settled in the region after retiring from military service. The fashion spread to Japan, where eventually other famous places were substituted for the Xiao and Xiang rivers. One of the famous ponds based on the geography of the lake is at the Daikaku-ji in Kyoto.

Qu Yuan traveled by boat from Dongting Lake to Nanhu Lake and the Canglong River (also known as the Wangjia River), journeying through the heartland of Baling. When his boat reached Jiazi Mountain, he saw the mountain covered in bright yellow oranges. He joyfully climbed the mountain and wrote the famous poem "Ode to the Orange" (橘颂). Later generations built the Orange Ode Pavilion on Jiazi Mountain in Yueyang City to commemorate Qu Yuan.

Moved by the natural beauty of the landscape, Shun ascended the mountain and gazed out over the vast lake. There, he personally performed the Shao Music. As he reached the ninth movement, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred: a dragon emerged from the depths of Dongting Lake and began to soar among the clouds, while a phoenix appeared gracefully gliding over the lake's surface. The two mythical creatures—symbols of cosmic balance and imperial authority—danced in harmony to the rhythm of Shun's music. After 1949 a new round of wetland drainage destroyed much of what remained, leaving only a fraction of the original wetland intact, though some of that area has subsequently been returned to wetland conditions. Nonetheless, along with Poyang Lake, it remains one of the largest lakes in China, and is an important wintering area for migratory birds. It has been designated as a protected Ramsar site since 1992.

After flooding of the Yangtze River in late June 2007, approximately 2 billion reed voles were displaced from the islands of the lake when water was released from the Three Gorges Dam to control the excess. The rodents invaded surrounding communities, damaging crops and dikes and forcing the government to construct walls and ditches to control the population. Villagers killed an estimated 2 million mice by beating them to death or using poisons, which also had an adverse effect on their predators.

A restoration project, the Sino-Norwegian Project of Biodiversity Protection Management, began in 2005. According to a 2007 article in the China Daily, "[The Dongting Lake area] will be restored to a sustainable biodiversity environment within five to 10 years".

Geography

River and lake

History

Culture and mythology

Major cities on the lake

See also

References

Citations

Sources

External links